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Lucas picked up this B20 in 1970 for 1300 Gulden. But there were TWO more B20s in the same deal!

By Pete Vack and Lucas van Dobben

Last week in A Life of Lancias Lucas wrote about his experiences working at the Lancia dealership and the Tulip Rally. Along the way, he naturally found many Lancias for himself. He had no less than FOUR B20s, “one with all the Nardi extras and Borani bimetal wheels.” [Read more…] about A Life of Lancias, Part 2

This year’s concours is the 20th anniversary and is featuring Lancia, Mercedes Benz 300 SL coupe and roadster and Previous Best of Show winners and class winners from the past 19 years to celebrate the 20th anniversary event. The featured motorcycle classes are Fast from the Past, Land of the Rising Sun and Mid-Century Motorcycles. The event is also unique in that it features horse-drawn coaches and carriages which illustrate the evolution of wheeled transportation. [Read more…] about Lancia to be a Featured Marque at Radnor Hunt

The Bertone Stratos Zero, introduced at Turin in 1970, is very different from the car that won three World Rally championships, and is totally different in respect to all its mechanics parts. However, this car provided the inspiration for the later Lancia Stratos Rally.

In the report below, VeloceToday Correspondent Roberto Motta describes the car in detail.

“Stratos”, from “stratosphere” is a name normally associated with an object alien to our environment, with strange links to time and space which surpass the confines and realities of daily life. In other words, something so fantastic it probably could not be real.

In reality, the new Stratos Zero prototype was a high performance car characterized by extreme lines but, as a project of Nuccio Bertone, was a fully functional, driveable car, unlike most of the extreme “concept” cars built for car shows.

A little about the history of this fascinating event: The Vernasca Hillclimb was originally sanctioned by the Automobile Club Piacenza between 1953 and 1972. The 1953 event attracted 40 entries, and was won by Alfa factory driver Consalvo Sanesi with a 3000CM. The race continued to grow, with 90 cars entered by 1955, when Massimo Leto de Priolo took first overall.

A Stanguellini Formula Junior achieved the fastest time in 1960, and by 1961 Odoarado Govoni took a Birdcage Maserati to win. The cars were getting bigger and faster as Govoni’s competition was Nando Pagliarini with a Ferrari SWB. Pagliarini returned in 1962 with the Ferrari to win. Abarth 1000s, Porsche 904s and Alfa TZs were popular entries in the 1960s, followed by the bigger, faster Abarth 2000s. In the early 1970s Lualdi brought the Ferrari 212 E hillclimb car to compete with the Porsche 908s. The last edition of Castell’Arquato-Vernasca was held May 14, 1972.

This segment reflects the cars at the event from Giannini to the one-off Serenissima. All in all, the 20th Vernasca Silver Flag Hill Climb was my sort of weekend. If you go next year, and as we understand, the event is already approved, you won’t be disappointed.

Mr. G's Lancia Aurelia B20 coupe. Since the T57 was also a coupe, he decided he wanted an open car.

By Brandes Elitch

In the previous column we related how our hero discovered a Bugatti while in military service in France and brought it home to Florida. He towed it to California to begin restoration at the same time he was a graduate student at Stanford University. He then acquired a Lancia Aurelia Spider and joined Hayden Shepley’s American Lancia Club as member number 7. We pick up the story in 1970 after he has graduated, married and is living in Carmel Valley, California. By now he has traded the Spider for an Aurelia Gran Turismo coupe, better suited to commuting to his job in Monterey. One day he saw an ad in the Monterey Herald newspaper for a 1954 Maserati 2 liter spider (S/N 2101). He had always coveted a Maserati, but already had the Bugatti and Lancia in the garage. A friend advised him that he really needed to have an open car because the other two were coupes. When he asked his wife for her opinion she replied, “The main vices in your character are the ones in the garage. Go ahead and buy what you really want!” It should be obvious to any car enthusiast that when this happens it is proof you married the right person. [Read more…] about A Lifetime of Cars of a Lifetime Part 2: Lancia to Maserati

I met Francesco De Virgilio occasionally during the 1960s and 70s, mostly in Turin, but for the last time at Mugello in 1981, during the Vincenzo Lancia Centenary celebrations that I helped to organize. He was a warm and friendly man of great charm, an engineer, a musician and an easy conversationalist full of fascinating stories about Lancia during the previous 40 years.

Geoff Goldberg’s illuminating book, Lancia and De Virgilio: At The Center, fleshes out those conversations wonderfully, providing an unusually intimate portrait of the man and the company during the last decade of Lancia family ownership. This is the proper stuff of history, which always concerns human activity and its consequences. [Read more…] about Lancia and De Virgilio: At The Center

Last of the Glory Days; testing the D50 with Ascari at Caselle Airport. Courtesy Nigel Trow.

By Nigel Trow

Sigmund Freud, Vincenzo Lancia’s older contemporary, would have had much to say about the life of Lancia’s son, Gianni, who died on June 30th 2014 at his home on Cap Ferrat, France. Born in Turin in November 1924, Gianni was the middle child of three and the only son of Vincenzo and Adele Lancia. The children were close in age; Anna Maria, the eldest, being born in 1922 and Eleonora, in 1926 (tragically murdered by her disturbed daughter in 1996). They were left fatherless in their early teens by Vincenzo’s sudden death in February 1937, and for Gianni, not yet 13 years old, the prospect of having to take his father’s place must have loomed large. [Read more…] about Gianni Lancia, 1924-2014

The Arutunoff Appia Zagato at the Walter Mitty at Atlanta in 1984. Photo by Pete Vack

By Toly Arutunoff

In 1964 it seemed like I needed a companion in the garage for my Lancia Flaminia Zagato. The previous year, after our good finishes in the Targa Florio, Nurburgring 1000km, and Spa 500km, the factory offered me a straight swap for my car and one of the GTS Appia Zagatos, guaranteed for 117 mph. I turned the offer down, but later I saw an ad for an Appia Zagato in Rhode Island for $900. I heard it call my name and before I knew it we were on our way east from our lair in Oklahoma. [Read more…] about Arutunoff and the Appia

Giuliano Canè is an Italian driver who has won many historical Mille Miglia and seven editions of the Coppa d’Oro. In an interview with a local newspaper, he said that the Coppa d’Oro in the 90s was at the same level as the Mille Miglia in terms of number of participants and even more qualified for drivers and cars. I remember in late 80s, I saw a man whose name is Mauro Forghieri changing the plugs of a Testarossa: what a dream! [Read more…] about Coppa D’Oro Delle Dolomiti (Cortina) 2013

This car is the make and model that started it all. In 1982 Martin Swig and Road & Track photographer John Lamm took a similar Alfa 1900 SSZ, without a Zagato signature double bubble roof, to the first Mille Miglia retrospettiva. They were the only Americans entered. That experience led to the creation of the California Mille. This example was brought by Bruce and Cathy Milner.

A Bittersweet Gathering

Story and photos by Michael T. Lynch

The sky was clear on Nob Hill in San Francisco and the temperature was in the mid sixties. An exceptional group of collector cars from all over the world were backing into their spaces on the street between the Pacific Union Club and the Fairmont Hotel. It was the traditional kick-off luncheon for the California Mille. For many of us it was an emotional time because it was the first edition of the event run without its founder Martin Swig, who left us in 2012. Many joked about the weather, saying that where Martin was now gave him a more direct line to control that.[Read more…] about California Mille Kickoff

Story and Photos below By Peter Collins
Above photo courtesy of the Classic Rally Association.

Portions of this article appeared in the new online classic rally magazine, Retro-Speed.
Check it out for classic rally stories and results!

When friend and colleague Peter Baker asked me if I would like to occupy the navigator’s seat in his well-prepared Lancia Fulvia 1600 HF for the Classic Rally Association’s Winter Challenge. The Rally started from Chester, which is a large and historic town south of Liverpool and close to the Welsh border (it has been used as a rally base several times in the past), and finished at Monte Carlo. I naturally acquiesced immediately. A fun drive with a spot of map-reading – easy, job done–but I had failed to notice that the event was an FIA Regularity round. This latter detail meant that it would be up to expert standards in all respects in order for it to be ratified by the international motorsport body, the Federation Internationale d’Automobile.

The Annual Ray Boniface Picnic is more than a car show. It’s a way to make free breast cancer exams available to women in eastern Ohio who could not otherwise afford one. The Picnic raises money for and schedules two yearly programs providing free mammograms for women in the Warren and Youngstown area of Ohio.[Read more…] about Boniface Picnic Benefits St. Elizabeth Health Center